CHAPTER 15
COLT
I was putting away the last of the dishes when I heard the shower cut off. My hands fumbled a glass, nearly dropping it, but I could hardly focus when I knew she was down the hallway with her bare feet padding across my tile and water beading down her spine.
I gripped the counter edge as I thought of her dragging one of my towels across her skin with her damp hair clinging to her neck and a flush spreading across her collarbones.
“Daddy,” Ruby called from the couch, and I jerked so hard I nearly broke the glass.
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and tried to tell myself to chill the fuck out. Blaire was going to be here for weeks, and this was only day one.
“Yeah, baby?” I glanced up at Ruby and tried to look like I wasn’t a twenty-nine-year-old man freaking out over a girl in his house.
She was curled up on the far end of the couch with both her feet poking out from under an old quilt.
“Are you listening?” she asked as she climbed to her knees and looked over the back of the couch at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face and managing a weak laugh. “It’s been a long day.”
“Are we still having a movie night? You and Blaire are taking forever.” She pouted before pointing to the TV, where Tangled was already queued up. It was Ruby’s favorite movie, and the only one we watched most of the time, with the exception of Moana.
“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands in surrender. “Why don’t you go ahead and start it, and I’ll go wrangle the guest of honor?”
She nodded, hitting play, and I cracked my neck as I left the kitchen.
I barely stepped into the hallway before the bathroom door opened, and Blaire stepped out with a cloud of steam behind her.
She was in an old T-shirt that hung uneven and too wide at the neck and a pair of sleep shorts that barely grazed the tops of her thighs.
Her bare legs caught the light and the urge to move toward her and trail a hand along her skin to see if it was as warm as it looked was overwhelming.
She went still when she saw me, hand braced on the doorframe. Her hair was wet, hanging down in perfect spirals, and she blinked at me through those thick lashes, her mouth set in a soft line like she was bracing for a fight.
“Ruby is looking for you,” I said, because if I tried for anything else, I was going to embarrass myself.
“I think I’m gonna head to bed.”
I hated the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Are you sure? We’ve got Tangled ready to go, and Rapunzel is like royalty around here. We never skip out on her.”
“I—” Blaire trailed off, shaking her head as if she were shaking off whatever was going through it.
“It’s just a movie, Blaire.” I crossed my arms. “You’re going to break Ruby’s heart if you don’t join us.
” It was a low blow and I knew it, but I wasn’t ready for her to go to bed.
Logically, I knew she was going to be here for weeks, but there was a part of me that feared she would go into that room and when we woke up tomorrow, she’d be gone.
Her eyes narrowed, suspicion flickering there. “Pretty sure she’ll survive one movie night without me.”
“Pretty sure she won’t,” I countered, unable to stop the smile that crept across my face. “If Ruby got anything from me, it’s my stubbornness, and trust me, she won’t stop until she gets what she wants.”
I could already hear the sounds of Tangled coming from the living room, followed by Ruby’s soft giggle.
Blaire studied me, and I thought she was going to refuse. But then she let out a sigh, rolling her eyes. “Fine, but if I want popcorn, you’re making me popcorn.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted her, and she moved past me in the hall, closer than she had to, and I caught the scent of bodywash on her skin. It was warm, woodsy, and unmistakably mine.
Without thinking, I reached out and caught her wrist, halting her in the narrow space between my bedroom door and hers. She stopped instantly, her pulse thudding under my thumb and goosebumps rising on her forearm as I leaned in.
“You used my bodywash,” I murmured, and it sounded like an accusation.
She glanced up at me, her eyes wide. “I couldn’t get into the bathroom at June’s to grab mine, and the only other thing in there was baby shampoo.
You know Ruby is five, right? I need to run to the store tomorrow or my curls aren’t going to survive.
” Her tone was calm, but her pulse ticked away beneath my hold like a bomb.
I should have heeded the warning and let her go, but it was like having my hand on a fuse and being unable to stop myself from striking the match.
“Blaire,” I uttered her name, my voice far too soft.
She blinked up at me as if she were in a daze, and I let my thumb trace a slow path on the inside of her wrist.
I lowered my head until my lips nearly brushed her skin, my voice dropping to a rough whisper that made her shiver against my grip. “You smell like me.”
Her lashes fluttered, and she made a half-hearted attempt to pull back. But I didn’t let her go, I couldn’t.
“That wasn’t on purpose,” she said quickly, but there was a tremor in her voice.
“Doesn’t matter.” My gaze snagged on the damp curls clinging to her collarbones, to the way her shirt stuck to her skin in places the steam hadn’t dried. “I love smelling me on you.”
I hadn’t meant to say it, not out loud, but the damage was already done. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, a flush spreading across her throat as her chest rose and fell beneath the damp cotton.
I should have let her go, but my hand slid up her arm, over the back of her neck where her pulse hammered against my palm, and into the wet tangle of her hair, my fingers curling possessively against her scalp.
Her voice broke the air between us, small and so reckless. “Colt?—”
“Yeah?” I whispered as my thumb traced the pulse at her throat.
I leaned closer, close enough to feel the heat of her breath against my lips. It’d been so long since I last tasted her, and heat flared everywhere we touched, a decade of restraint unraveling with each shallow breath between us.
“You can’t say things like that,” she whispered, her voice catching as I pressed my thumb lightly against her neck, feeling her pulse jump wildly beneath my touch.
Her eyes darkened as her lips parted. When that soft fucking gasp escaped her, I felt it vibrate through my fingertips and straight to my cock.
Ten years of wanting concentrated into a single, devastating sound.
I bit back the groan clawing up my throat, dropping my forehead to hers. “Tell me to stop.” The words stuck, thick and so damn dangerous, because part of me was begging her to tell me, and the rest was praying she wouldn’t.
Her breath hitched, and I felt her hand fist in the front of my shirt, bunching the cotton over my abs.
“I want you to—” Her words drifted off, and it should have drained every bit of the heat raging through me, but her hand only tightened in the fabric, pulling me closer to her until all I could feel was the heat of her through my clothes.
“You want me to what, Blaire?” I whispered, and she let out the tiniest little whimper.
She lifted her chin a fraction, enough that her top lip skimmed over my bottom one, and it sent electricity crackling down my spine, pooling low and heavy in my gut. Her breath caught on a small sound that made my fingers flex involuntarily against her throat.
“I want?—”
She didn’t move. Not away, not forward. We hovered in that half inch of space between us, like neither of us was willing to risk what would happen if we crossed it completely.
My body ached to close it, to taste her lips again and press her against the wall until she felt the hard length of me against her stomach.
But this wasn’t just me and Blaire anymore.
I had Ruby, and I wouldn’t let her become collateral damage because of my careless decisions.
“What was it I said earlier?” I rasped, my fingers still possessive against her skin. “That we can be cordial?”
She let out a breathless laugh that vibrated against my palm, her pupils so blown out I could drown in them. “Is this what you call cordial?”
Her hips tipped almost mindlessly against mine, and I groaned as I watched her tongue flick over her lower lip.
I was desperate to lean down and drag it between my teeth.
I couldn’t think of anything except for the taste and feel and scent of her, so dizzy with need I was seconds away from letting every bit of my want pour out of me.
“Daddy, are y’all coming?” Ruby’s voice shot down the hallway, and Blaire jerked back like she’d been hit.
She twisted out of my grip so fast I almost stumbled, and the flush in her cheeks spread all the way to her ears.
She wrapped her arms around herself, shaky fingers digging into her skin, eyes fixed on some invisible point beyond my shoulder.
The way she closed herself off, like she was bracing for impact, made something possessive surge inside of me.
She had been sunshine in my hands once, warm and wild and bright, and I’d thrown her to the wolves, to a world that demanded she become someone else.
“We’ll be right there,” I called to Ruby, trying to keep the strain out of my voice, and then I stepped into Blaire’s path until I forced her to look back up at me. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, teeth sinking into her bottom lip until the skin went white. My hands twitched at my sides, wanting to pull her back into me, but Ruby’s voice echoed in my head.
And Blaire—Christ, the way her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, the slight tremble in her shoulders—she looked like she wanted to run.
She released her lip, and she forced a smile. “Of course I’m okay,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Blaire.” I took the smallest step toward her, but she stepped back.
“We’re adults, Colt.” Her eyes skimmed over me with a practiced indifference.
It was like watching the Blaire I knew disappear behind a mask I didn’t recognize.
“You said so yourself earlier. That was—” She waved her hand toward where her body had been pressed against mine moments ago.
“A momentary lapse in judgment.” She straightened her shoulders, voice hardening.
“My ex-fiancé spent the last year of our engagement screwing his assistant, so my standards are clearly questionable.”
The mention of her ex-fiancé slammed into my chest, igniting a wildfire of rage that burned through every rational thought, but beneath it lay an ocean of guilt that threatened to drown me whole. I’d done this. I’d shoved her straight into the arms of a man just like her father.
If I’d kept her here, if she had stayed mine, I wouldn’t see that razor-sharp edge in her eyes now. But she’d built armor around herself to survive a world I’d abandoned her to.
“Scout’s honor. It won’t happen again.” She smiled as she raised her hands in a mock pledge, but her words were flat, and they hit me harder than if she’d hauled off and decked me.
I froze as the urge to pull her back to me was replaced by a sick, hollow ache, and I felt every inch of the distance she’d just put between us.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You made your point.”
I stepped aside, giving her a clear path, and she hesitated for the smallest moment, her face falling and a glimpse of my Blaire coming through. “Colt?—”
“Ruby’s waiting.” I turned away, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, and just like that, the wall between us snapped back in place.
We were nothing more than two strangers who had to spend a few weeks under the same roof, with years of history burning between us like a live wire, and fuck, every second near her was going to tear me apart from the inside out.